V
By way of the automobile ferry from Long Island to New London, Connecticut, Lanny drove his wife to his father’s home, and they spent a week with the family. The town of Newcastle had been hard hit by the depression: the arms plant was shut down entirely; the hardware and elevator and other plants were running only three days a week. The workers were living on their savings if they had any; they were mortgaging their homes, and losing their cars and radio sets because they couldn’t meet installment payments. There were a couple of thousand families entirely destitute, and most of them were Budd workers, so it was a strain upon the consciences and pocketbooks of all members of the ruling family. Esther was working harder than even during the World War; she was chairman of the finance committee of the town’s soup kitchens and children’s aid, and went about among the women’s clubs and churches telling harrowing stories and making the women weep, so that private charity might not break down entirely.
That was a crucial issue, as her husband told her. If America was forced to adopt the British system of the dole, it would be the end of individual initiative and private enterprise. Robbie seemed to his son like the anchor-man of a tug-of-war team, his heels dug into the ground, his teeth set, the veins standing out purple in his forehead with the effort he was making to keep his country from moving the wrong way. Robbie had been down to Washington to see President Hoover, his hero and the captain of his team. The Great Engineer was literally besieged; all the forces of disorder and destruction—so he considered them and so did Robbie—were trying to pry him from his stand that the budget must be balanced, the value of the dollar maintained, and business allowed to "come back" in due and regular course.
The cities and the counties, nearing the end of their resources, were clamoring for Federal aid; the returned soldiers had organized to demand a bonus for the services they had rendered overseas while the business men at home were filling their pocketbooks. So the agitators charged, frothing at the mouth, and they had forced their bill through Congress over the President’s veto. Poor Herbert went on making speeches about the American system of "rugged individualism"; it was heartening to him to have a solid business man, one who had been an oil man like himself, come in and tell him that he was saving civilization.
Esther, of course, had to believe her husband; she told all the club ladies and church ladies that they were saving civilization, and they put in their dimes or their dollars, and gathered together and knitted sweaters or cooked and served hot soup. But every slump in Wall Street threw more men out of work in Newcastle, and the ladies were at their wit’s end. When Irma wrote a check for five thousand dollars for the children, tears of gratitude ran down the cheeks of Lanny’s stepmother. He had given her great sorrow in years past, but now his credit rating was triple-A. Even his Pinkness had been made respectable by the crimson hues of Bess, concerning whom the mother inquired with deepest anxiety.
The Newcastle Country Club was giving a costume dance for charity. You paid twenty-five dollars for a ticket, and if you weren’t there you were nobody. Irma and Lanny had to drive to a near-by city, since everybody who knew how to sew in Newcastle was already at work on costumes. But it was all right, for that city likewise had its smokeless factory chimneys. Several women worked day and night, and as a result the visiting pair appeared as a very grand Beatrice and Benedick in red-and-purple velvet with gold linings. A delightful occasion, and when it was over, Irma and Lanny presented the costumes to the country club’s dramatics committee, for Irma said that if you folded them and carried them in the car they’d be full of creases and not fit to use again.
VI
Not much fun visiting a factory town in times like these. But it was the Budd town, and in prosperous days everybody had been cordial to the young couple and their friends, even the Jewish ones. So now it was necessary to stay, and give sympathy and a little help, and have receptions held in their honor, and shake hands and chat with innumerable Budds—not even Lanny could remember them all, and had to "bone up" as if it were for a college examination. Also they played golf and tennis at the country club, and swam and went sailing in delightful June weather. The countryside put on a show of wild roses, and all nature told them not to worry too much, that life was going on.
Also they had to pay a visit to the president of Budd Gunmakers. The old man had told Lanny that he would probably never see him again; but here he was, still holding on, still running the company by telephone. His hands shook so that it was painful to watch; his cheeks hung in flaps so that he seemed to have twice as much yellow skin as was needed to cover his shrinking form; but he was the same grim Puritan, and still questioned Lanny to make sure he had not forgotten his Bible texts. He had heard about Baby Frances, of course, and said he had carried out his promise to put her in his will, though he didn’t know if he really had any property any more, or if Budd stocks would be worth the paper. He pinned the pair down on whether they were going to have another try for a son, and Irma told him they were leaving it to the Lord; this wasn’t so, but Lanny didn’t contradict her, and afterward she said it would have been a shame to worry that old man so close to the grave.
Everybody knew that he couldn’t hold on much longer, and there was an underground war going on for control of the company; a painful struggle between Robbie and his oldest brother Lawford, that silent, morose man who was in charge of production, and whom Lanny and Irma saw only when they attended the First Congregational Church. The old grandfather had not said whom he wished to have succeed him, and of course nobody liked to ask him. For some time Lawford had been seeking out the directors and presenting his side of the case, which involved telling them of the blunders which Robbie had committed—or what Lawford considered blunders. Naturally, this made it necessary for Robbie to defend himself, and it was an ugly situation. Robbie thought he had the whip hand so far. His father had renewed his contract as European sales representative for another five years, so if Lawford got the presidency they’d have to pay a pretty price to buy Robbie out.
VII
The business situation in Germany went from bad to worse. Robbie received a letter from Johannes, saying that it looked like the end of everything. Foreign loans were no more, and Germany couldn’t go on without them. Johannes was taking more money out of the country, and asking Robbie’s help in investing it. Robbie told his son in strict confidence—not even Irma was allowed to know —that President Hoover had prepared a declaration of a moratorium on international debts; he was still hesitating about this grave step; would it help or would it cause more alarm? The French, who had not been consulted, would probably be furious.
The declaration was issued soon after the young couple had returned to Shore Acres, and the French were furious, but the Germans were not much helped. In the middle of July the great Danat Bank failed in Berlin, and there was terror such as Lanny had witnessed in New York. Chancellor Briining went to Paris to beg for help, and Premier Laval refused it; France was now the strongest European power financially, and was sitting on her heap of gold, lending it only for the arming of Poland and her other eastern allies —which were blackmailing her without mercy. Britain had made the mistake of trying to buttress German finances, and now her own were shaky as a result. "We’re not that sort of fools," wrote young Denis de Bruyne to Lanny, who replied: "If you let the German Republic fall and you get Hitler, will that help you?" Young Denis did not reply.